


follow you home

by QuietLittleVoices



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: College era, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Intricate Rituals, M/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 18:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/QuietLittleVoices
Summary: “That doesn’t have to be home,” Jack says quickly. “You can make a new one. Our apartment in Orlando, that can be home.”Sammy’s chest hurts when Jack says it. Their apartment, the one they shared with Lily, had been home for a long time. Jack and Lily’s apartment had felt more like home than any place he’d ever known even before he’d moved in with them. He wanted that, to be able to acknowledge it, more than anything but if he said it… then he would be completely fucked. There was no going back from admitting to himself or anyone that it felt like home when Jack was around.





	follow you home

**Author's Note:**

> I've been listening to Lover (the album not just the song) non-stop for three days and yet the title is from Treacherous. I'm valid.

Sammy sits heavily on the motel bed. He feels all the air go out of his lungs and he slumps forward, bracing himself on his knees. His brain is just - static. He hasn’t thought about anything since he pulled out of his parents’ driveway three hours ago, just  _ can’t be here can’t be here can’t be here _ , a litany that blurs together in his brain until it’s just static screaming at him so loud that he doesn’t remember talking to whoever was at the desk. He must’ve paid. He has the room key. He just can’t  _ remember _ it.

His cell phone rings, muffled, somewhere in the depths of his duffle bag and Sammy ignores it. The sharp trill cuts through to his brain but doesn’t stop the noise so he drops his head further to cover his ears and breathes in deep until he can feel it in the pit of his stomach. The phone cuts itself off and then, a few seconds later, starts to ring again, and that’s when Sammy realizes it must be Jack.

Sammy throws himself off the bed and scrambles to his bag, discarded haphazardly at the door, and tears through his things until he pulls out the blocky phone, hitting the call button just before it stops again. 

“Hi,” Sammy says breathlessly. “Sorry. I was - I was worried it was my parents. But that would be -” he cuts himself off and rocks back until he’s sitting properly, loops his arms around his knees and rests his forehead on them. “How are you?”

“Slow down,” Jack says quietly, voice low because Sammy knows he’s being forced to share a room with Lily right now. It’s Winter break and Jack has called every evening since they parted ways to complain about his extended family or update him on his latest research project (the yeti, which Sammy makes fun of him for as a native Californian who’s only seen snow a handful of times in his life). “Start from the beginning, please? What’s going on?”

Sammy takes a deep breath and it catches in his throat and for a horrifying second Sammy thinks that he might start to cry. He hasn’t yet. He hopes that he can hold off until he’s not on the phone with Jack, at least, because Jack doesn’t need that. Even though he’d spent almost every spare moment with Jack for the last semester - and over the summer, really, since they’d both scored internships at the same radio station - he knew that Jack had never seen him cry, and he didn’t want to break that streak. He felt like he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, with Jack. He was the best friend that Sammy had ever had - maybe the only real friend - but Sammy knew how he could get and knew that one day Jack would wise up and walk away.

“I’m in Kansas City,” Sammy admits slowly. “I left. My parents - they. They found out. I don’t know how, I’ve been so  _ careful _ , but. Somehow. Maybe it’s just obvious, God -” Sammy cuts himself off. 

Jack’s quiet for a few seconds and the static starts back up in Sammy’s brain,  _ he’s gonna realize, one day he’s gonna realize you aren’t worth it _ . “Did they kick you out?” he asks. Sammy can hear rustling and the click of his door as he seems to get up and out of the bedroom. 

Sammy shakes his head even though he knows that Jack can’t even see him. “No - no, but. It was like they couldn’t even see me. They would just look  _ through _ me and they weren’t talking to me and I just couldn’t take it. I had to leave and - I don’t think I’m ever gonna come back.”

“Where did you say you were?” Jack asks, voice still quiet as Sammy pictures him walking softly through a house that he’s never seen. 

Sammy repeats himself, adding the name of the motel, and he hears a door slide and imagines Jack standing out on the patio in his pyjamas. The soft grey pants and old highschool rugby shirt that fit just a little too tight, his glasses still on because he was probably reading before he called Sammy. He usually was, and he’d tell Sammy about whatever weird and interesting thing he’d learnt. The time difference meant that it was still pretty early in San Diego, but it was dark out in Kansas.

“Are you going back to Orlando?” Jack asks softly, like  _ this _ is the dangerous question, out of everything going on.

“Not right away,” Sammy answers, letting his head fall back against the edge of the bed. “I’m not - ready to face that, going back to school and never going home. But I can’t be home.”

Jack is quiet again but before Sammy’s brain can cut in and ruin everything he says, “I’m really sorry this happened,” almost too soft for Sammy to hear over the white noise in his head.

“It was always going to,” Sammy says. “They were either gonna find out or I’d just leave, but - I knew I’d get here, not being able to go home.”

“That doesn’t have to be home,” Jack says quickly. “You can make a new one. Our apartment in Orlando, that can be home.”

Sammy’s chest hurts when Jack says it. Their apartment, the one they shared with Lily, had been home for a long time. Jack and Lily’s apartment had felt more like home than any place he’d ever known even before he’d moved in with them. He wanted that, to be able to acknowledge it, more than  _ anything _ but if he said it… then he would be completely fucked. There was no going back from admitting to himself or anyone that it felt like home when Jack was around. 

“Tell me what you did today,” Sammy says after a second. “You were supposed to take your cousins to the park, right?”

Jack mercifully lets him change the topic. “Yeah, and Lily came, too. She didn’t want to but she’d rather be out than stuck alone with our aunts and uncles. It was mostly just babysitting, even though the kids thought it was so cool that it isn’t snowing since they’re from Montana.”

Sammy closes his eyes as Jack talks, telling him about buying the kids ice cream and how he had to give his to the middle one when she dropped hers on the pavement. He talked about Lily, the stories his aunt told at dinner after a few glasses of wine, and the book he’d just ordered on the yeti. Eventually Sammy hears him walk back inside and go back up to his bedroom. He isn’t sure when he drifts off, exactly, but suddenly Sammy is waking up, fully clothed and on top of the duvet with his cell phone clutched in his hand.

Sammy doesn’t have anything to do because there’s still another week before classes and he’s missing a syllabus. Even the ones that are posted don’t have anything due that he can start on - there’s an assignment on the first Friday but no information, and he hadn’t bought any of the books yet. He lays in bed for as long as he can and is just about to get up and try to find coffee when Jack texts him at eleven with a  _ calling now _ warning.

Sammy beats him to it because if Jack wants to talk in the morning that means - it’s not good. There’s something going on and Sammy needs to know because if his entire life is imploding he’s gonna do his best to keep Jack from going with it. “What’s up?” Sammy asks. He feels keyed up and he has to force his leg to stop bouncing under the table. 

Jack sounds… happy when he replies. “You have your car, right?”

“...Yes?” Sammy replies, confused. “I drove here.”

“Great!” Jack says cheerfully. “Then you can pick me up.”

Sammy’s brain stutters and then stops. “From… San Diego?”

Jack laughs, bright and easy. Sammy would do anything to keep hearing that laugh but it doesn’t answer any of his questions. “From Kansas City Airport.”

“I - Holy shit,” Sammy breathes. He can barely hear himself over the screaming in his head. “You’re here?”

Jack’s laugh turns nervous, almost a giggle, and Sammy has to push down anything in him that thinks it’s a little bit  _ cute _ . “Seems like it! I’m too fucking cold to be in California, that’s for sure.”

“Okay - God, okay, I’m on my way,” Sammy says quickly, pushing himself out of bed and trying to find his clothes and his keys and  _ where did he put his wallet, goddammit _ , “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

Sammy… can’t believe that Jack will be there when he arrives. He spends the entire drive certain that Jack’s pulling the worst practical joke in the history of jokes, but then he parks and walks into the arrivals terminal and there he is, standing near a luggage carousel and watching the doors intently. He grins as soon as he spots Sammy and Sammy knows his face looks equally ridiculous. Jack walks over quickly and throws his arms around Sammy and they stand there for a second, holding onto each other tightly, like if they let go for even a second they’ll both break apart.

“I missed you so much,” Jack says, pulling away with his lopsided grin still firmly in place. “I couldn’t let you spend New Years alone.”

Sammy can’t stop smiling. “I missed you, too. I would have been okay, but - I’m happy to see you.”

As Sammy leads the way out to his car, he realizes that Jack has a full suitcase, the same one he’d left campus with. That shouldn’t have been surprising - even if Jack was only here for a night he’d need things, and if he only had access to one huge suitcase then that was the choice. But it still makes Sammy pause. “Are you going back home before school?”

Jack shakes his head. “Wasn’t planning on it… unless you want me to leave?” he says, voice turning up uncertainly at the end. “I know I kinda sprung myself on you, but there’s only a few more days, and -”

“No,” Sammy interrupts almost too quickly before ducking his head, hoping that his face heating up doesn’t mean he’s blushing. It’s just the shock of the cold as they get off the elevator, probably. “No, you can stay as long as you want.”

“Good,” Jack says softly, and Sammy is too scared to look up and see the expression on his face but he call tell that Jack is still smiling. “We can road trip back to Florida together. It’ll be fun!”

Sammy’s head jerks in a stiff nod, and he takes the way the thought of being alone in a car with Jack for eighteen hours feels and packs it up in a box and shoves it all the way down. “I’ll make sure to drive through all the nicest fields on our way.”

Sammy isn’t sure how he forgets but in the excitement of Jack calling and Jack being  _ there _ , he doesn’t remember that there’s only one bed in his motel room until they’re pulling up outside it. “Uh, so, I can sleep on the floor while you’re here,” he says, suddenly awkwardly. 

“No way, I will. You paid for the motel and everything so you get the bed,” Jack replies. 

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Sammy says helplessly, because Jack’s reasoning makes sense on one level but - “You came all the way out here just so I wouldn’t be alone. I think you deserve it.”

“We can just share,” Jack suggests easily and Sammy feels himself tense slightly as he leads Jack up the stairs. “It’s too fucking cold here, anyway. We’ll both need blankets.”

“Alright,” Sammy agrees slowly. “It’s only for a few more days, and then we’ll drive back.”

There’s a weird quality to Jack’s voice when he responds that Sammy doesn’t recognize. “Yeah, only a few days.”

Jack puts his bag down next to the bed on the side farthest from the door. “I have The X-Files in my bag if you wanna pick back up where we left off?”

Sammy grins as Jack pulls out his boxset. “That sounds great.”

Jack had been horrified to learn that Sammy had never watched The X-Files and had taken it upon himself to get Sammy caught up episode by episode, with provided cryptid and trivia expert commentary from Jack. Sammy was much more interested in the inches of space between them on the couch during their TV nights and the way Jack moved his hands and lit up when he talked, almost like he didn’t realize it. He was pretty sure he couldn’t say what half of the episodes he’d watched so far were about.

Jack sets up his own laptop and sets it in the middle of the bed, and they both sit on either side of it. Sammy holds himself still, keeping himself at the distance Jack sets, and tries to focus on the screen. It’s - not really his thing. But Jack loves it. It’s important to him, so it’s important to Sammy. They’re a few episodes in when Jack’s shoulder touches his and Sammy feels himself stiffen. The noise in his brain fades back in, like the volume was being turned up slowly, and he tried to force it away by refocuses on the show but he couldn’t get it to hold his attention. Jack shifted, almost moving away, and Sammy let himself relax a fraction to press his shoulder against Jack’s equally. Not more, just meeting him where he was at. 

They go see a movie in the morning on New Years’ Eve. There aren’t that many options but they settle on a Jennifer Aniston romcom over  _ Brokeback Mountain _ . They’ve both heard of it - Lily had seen it before they left for break - but… it didn’t seem like a good choice, not with everything that had happened. It was a little easier to forget about his life watching Jennifer Aniston pretend to be misunderstood. 

After lunch they go to the mall to look at better jackets for Jack but he decides it isn’t important. “I won’t be back somewhere this cold if I can help it,” Jack says lightly, and Sammy is struck with how that’s true for him, too. He has no reason to come back to Kansas and unless he gets a job up North he probably won’t be anywhere like this in a long time. Sammy isn’t sure how he feels about it, something thorny and knotted sitting in the pit of his stomach. 

Jack puts his laptop on his legs so Sammy has to scoot closer to him until their sides are touching and they watch a couple more episodes of The X-Files, until after the sun’s gone down. Sammy moves away from Jack at eleven and tries not to think about the cold he can feel against his side as he finds the remote and flips the TV onto the times square coverage. 

Sammy resettles back a few inches aware from Jack because - that’s what they did. They didn’t normally sit so close, Jack was probably just worried about his laptop overheating against the plasticy motel duvet. But then Jack leans into Sammy’s shoulder and they watch the TV quietly, each butting in with some commentary but Sammy can feel himself starting to drift off even while the crowd screams and cheers on the TV.

Jack jostles his shoulder when the countdown starts. “Ten,” he says quietly, and Sammy joins him for the rest of the countdown. 

_ Three. Two. One - _

All at once Jack is kissing him. His hands are on Sammy’s face and Sammy feels - frozen. There was no warning - he hadn’t noticed Jack looking at him, he’d barely noticed Jack  _ move _ but he’s there and he’s kissing Sammy and Sammy hasn’t  _ done anything  _ -

Jack pulls away and the expression on his face is unreadable. Sammy can’t take it, can’t take the not knowing, the  _ was that just because it’s New Years? Have you wanted to do that as long as I have? _ And for once he manages to just - shut it off. Before he can think, before he can stop himself, he throws his leg over Jack’s until he’s in his lap and kisses him so hard his head hits the wall with an audible  _ thunk _ .

“Sorry,” Sammy breathes, pulling a hair's breadth away from Jack’s mouth. Instead of replying, Jack just kisses Sammy back, hands already at the hem of Sammy’s shirt and trying to pull it up.

Getting Jack’s shirt off is more of a challenge because he’s got  _ layers _ , can’t even handle the chill of the motel room, and by the time they’ve managed it Jack is on his back but Sammy is still straddling him. Sammy takes a second to take it in, Jack shirtless underneath him, flushed and looking completely wrecked and  _ Sammy _ did that - before Jack is reaching up and pulling him down by the back of his neck to kiss him again. 

“I love you,” Sammy says, moments before their lips touch.

Jack stops and stares at Sammy, the easy smile from a few seconds ago gone as he just - looks. Sammy is certain that he’s said the wrong thing, fucked it all up and Jack is gonna get up and walk out and book a ticket alone to Orlando, but then Jack is surging up to kiss him. It’s more desperate than before and Sammy feels himself falling into Jack. “I love you so much,” Jack says, eyes closed. “I’ve wanted to do this all year.”

Sammy grins and reaches up to Jack’s face, brushing his cheekbone with his thumb until Jack opens his eyes and smiles up at Sammy. “So this is something? We’re doing this?”

Jack nods quickly. “I really want to. I’ve thought about - making the X-Files nights into date nights. Holding your hand. Kissing you right now and hashing out the details in the morning -”

Sammy doesn’t need more persuading. 


End file.
